Sensing the world : an anthropology of the senses

Sensing the World: An Anthropology of the Senses is a highly original and comprehensive overview of the anthropology and sociology of the body and the senses. Discussing each sense in turn - seeing, hearing, touch, smell, and taste - Le Breton has written a truly monumental work, vast in scope and deeply engaging in style. Among other pioneering moves, he gives equal attention to light and darkness, sound and silence, and his disputation of taste explores aspects of disgust and revulsion. Part phenomenological, part historical, this is above all a cultural account of perception, which returns the body and the senses to the center of social life. Le Breton is the leading authority on the anthropology of the body and the senses in French academia. With a repute comparable to the late Pierre Bourdieu, his 30+ books have been translated into numerous languages. This is the first of his works to be made available in English. This sensuously nuanced translation of La Saveur du monde is accompanied by a spicy preface from series editor David Howes, who introduces Le Breton's work to an English-speaking audience and highlights its implications for the disciplines of anthropology, sociology, and the cross-disciplinary field of sensory studies.

Preface: David Le Breton and the Sociality of SensationDavid HowesIntroduction1. Sensing the World: An Anthropology of the Senses2. From Seeing to Knowing: Sight, the Reflective Sense3. Listening to the World: Hearing, the Sense of Understanding4. Skin Deep: Touch, the Sense of Contact5. Smelling and Feeling, the Self and the Other6. Savouring the World: From Taste in Food to the Taste for Life7. The Cuisine of DisgustOvertureReferencesIndex